


Village of the Dolls

by pigeonking



Series: The Missing Doctor Adventures - Season One [5]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 03:28:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10296470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonking/pseuds/pigeonking
Summary: This story was inspired by a real life village in Japan called Nagoro. You can look it up on Google Maps and explore the village on street view....





	

“We don’t have to wait you know.” The Doctor was saying as he busied himself at the console. He skipped from one panel to the other, pulling levers and tapping buttons like a pro-typist. The central rotor rose and fell rhythmically to indicate that the TARDIS was currently in flight.

“Wait for what?” Clover asked. She was sat in a high backed wooden chair in one corner of the control room using a futuristic looking device with a glowing red tip to seal a small cut on her forehead that she had sustained during her most recent adventure with the Doctor.

“To see Sly’s cubs. We don’t have to wait until they are born!” the Doctor explained. “This is a time machine after all!”

Clover had finished healing her cut and upon hearing the Doctor’s explanation she leapt out of the chair to rush over and give him an excited hug.

“That’s a wonderful idea, Doctor!” she enthused and kissed him on the cheek for added emphasis.

The Doctor flushed pinker than a glass of Rose wine. Clover disentangled herself and allowed him to finish setting the co-ordinates.

“The gestation period for pregnant vixens is around fifty-eight days so if I set the TARDIS to arrive around two months after our departure we should be all right.” The Doctor told her as he worked.

“Get on with it then!” Clover remarked cheekily.

The Doctor looked up and glared at her with mock indignation.

“These are very precise co-ordinates, young lady! One mistake and we could over shoot by centuries! Foxes don’t live that long you know, but we could meet one of Sly’s future descendants if that’s what you’d prefer?” he chided good-naturedly.

“Less of the ‘young lady’, whipper-snapper!” Clover retorted, sticking her tongue out. “Despite your not-unpleasant outward physical appearance, you aren’t even a year old yet!”

“Maybe not, but I have the mind and memories of a man that has endured centuries of existence!” the Doctor replied, though some of the humour had leaked away from his tone. “I wonder, would it have been better if the Doctor had not given me his memories and instead left me with the capacity to make my own?” His gaze wandered and fixed upon some random part of the TARDIS control room as this particular thought haunted him.

“Hello? Clover to Doctor; can you read me?” Clover cut into his thoughtful reverie. “You do have the capacity to make your own memories. Yes, so you have a back log of centuries’ worth of experience at your disposal, but everything that you have experienced at Smithwood Manor, on Telos and just now in the Middle Ages… those are your memories and your experiences. The other Doctor doesn’t have those. They are yours alone. And let’s be honest, the other Doctor’s memories and experiences have come in handy a few times haven’t they? Would you have recognised that Krynoid pod without the Doctor’s memories? Would you have been able to gain the trust of the Cryons and the Vogans on Telos? Or Sir Edward in the Middle Ages? And you’ve gotta admit that knowing the fate of Linx the Sontaran came in handy too, right?”

“Yes, I suppose you do make a fair few valid arguments there.” The Doctor conceded with a wan smile.

“You better believe it, buster!” Clover grinned.

“Thank you, Clover. I can always rely on you to pick me up when I need it the most. I’m very lucky to have you.” The Doctor told her.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else, but by your side.” Clover assured him.

It was then that the rotor began to slow down and the howl of the TARDIS engines was clearly audible.

“We’ve arrived!” the Doctor declared.

“What does one wear when visiting fox cubs, darling?” Clover opined putting on a posh, upper-crust English accent.

“I think a red one-piece jumpsuit will be just fine, my dear!” the Doctor replied, affecting an accent of his own.

They both burst into a fit of giggles and both reached for the lever that opened the doors at the same time. There was a shy, awkward pause as the Doctor’s hand rested atop of Clover’s. The intimacy was not lost on either of them. Slowly they both pulled the lever down together and the double doors swung open. The lush greenery of the medieval forest outside greeted them.

The Doctor and Clover lifted their hands from the lever and walked outside.

 

Glorious spring sunshine glowed down upon them through the trees as they emerged into the forest clearing. The Doctor pulled the door shut behind them.

“How do we find one specific family of foxes in a forest like this?” Clover wondered.

“With this!” the Doctor brandished his sonic sword with a flourish. “Sly’s DNA signature is still encoded within the inner-matrix. Find him and we’ll find the rest.”

“Lead the way, Kemosabe!” Clover proclaimed with a sweeping gesture of her arm.

“I like that!” the Doctor enthused. “Perhaps I can call myself that instead of Doctor!”

“No!” Clover thundered in a tone that brooked no argument.

“On the other hand, Doctor is a fine title if I may say so!” the Doctor hastily amended.

Clover beamed happily and linked her arm through the Doctor’s as they proceeded to follow the sword to wherever it may lead them.

It did not take long for the Doctor and Clover to discover the burrow which Sly and his vixen had dug for themselves with the assistance of the sword’s tracking capabilities. The Doctor had almost stepped into the hole in the forest floor situated between two weeping willows, before the sonic sword emitted a shrill beeping noise to inform them that they had arrived.

Withdrawing his foot from the precarious position that it held over the burrow, the Doctor knelt in front of the opening alongside Clover.

“Sly! Are you in there?” he called inside.

“Sly?” Clover joined in.

No response came from within. The only sound was the quiet breathing of the Time Lord and his companion and the songs of the birds in the trees. Somewhere a cuckoo’s distinctive call drifted hauntingly through the foliage.

“Sly? Are you in there?” Clover repeated.

Again there was silence and birdsong.

“Maybe they’re out hunting?” Clover suggested.

“Nonsense! Fox cubs spend the first few weeks in their den with the mother at least. Sly must be here because the sonic sword is tuned to his DNA.” The Doctor insisted.

“The cubs would have at least some of his DNA. Maybe that is what the sword was picking up?” Clover offered. “If the vixen is on her own with the cubs she wouldn’t necessarily respond to our voices like Sly would.”

“Sound reasoning. Maybe Sly is out hunting?” the Doctor agreed.

A familiar yipping bark sounded from behind them.

The Doctor and Clover stood up and turned to face the owner of that yip.

Sly stood a few feet behind them at the edge of the clearing. A freshly killed male pheasant lay at his feet and his tail was wagging enthusiastically. If foxes could grin then Sly had the hugest of foxy grins upon his vulpine features at this precise moment.

He ran over to Clover and the Doctor and accepted all the fussing and belly scratching they had on offer.

“We’ve come to see the cubs, Sly. We promised we would and here we are!” the Doctor grinned as an unashamed tear of joy tracked down his face. They had barely left the little fox a little more than half an hour ago and yet it seemed they were meeting again after being apart for years.

Sly seemed to understand what the Doctor had said. He yipped once and disentangled himself from their reunion long enough to retrieve his pheasant.

The Doctor and Clover watched as he disappeared, with the pheasant, into the burrow. All they could do now was wait for him to return.

They didn’t have to wait long. Sly returned about five minutes later with something different held gently in his jaws. He very delicately placed the tiny bundle upon the ground in front of them.

The Doctor and Clover took one look at the clumsy ball of dark fur that scrambled through the leaf litter, its little eyes shut tightly as if the sunshine was too bright for it. That one look was enough to make their hearts melt.

As the two time travellers cooed and fussed over their ‘grandchild’ Sly disappeared back and forth into the den four more times until there were five cubs stumbling and mewling through the litter.

“Oh my God! They are so adorable!” Clover gushed.

“Enough to make you feel broody, eh, Clover?” the Doctor chuckled.

“Easy, Doctor, plenty of time for that sort of thing.” Clover teased as she took up one of the other cubs.

The mother had appeared in the entrance of the burrow and looked out anxiously at her cubs as if she were eager that they be returned to the safety of the den.

This did not go unnoticed by the Doctor. He sidled gently over to Clover.

“I think it’s time we let them go back in.” he suggested quietly.

Clover nodded. She placed the cub she was cradling back upon the ground and Sly and the mother set about picking them up and returning them to the burrow.

It was another ten minutes before all of the cubs had been safely returned home.

Sly came out after to yip a good bye to his surrogate parents and accept one last ear scratching from them.

“Well done, Sly. You’ve made us proud. You definitely made the right choice. This is where you belong.” The Doctor said.

Sly yipped once in answer to the Doctor’s remark and then turned and disappeared for good back into his new home with his new family.

The Doctor and Clover stood up and started the walk back to the TARDIS.

“Time for us to go back to where we belong.” The Doctor sighed happily.

“Amen to that!” Clover agreed. She reached for the Doctor’s hand and he took it without hesitation.

He didn’t let go until they were back inside the TARDIS.

 

“Where to next?” the Doctor asked as he pulled the lever to close the doors.

“I don’t care, anywhere… somewhere that you haven’t been to before in another life preferably.” Clover replied.

“Ooh I like a challenge!” the Doctor grinned at her wolfishly.

He began to dance the waltz of the TARDIS console. A pirouette here, a sliding side step there; levers pulled, buttons pressed and all set to the rhythmic typing in of co-ordinates on keyboards.

The rotor shuddered into life and began to rise and fall slowly and the protesting growl of the engines announced their departure from the Middle Ages.

“So where, or should I say when, have you chosen?” Clover wondered.

“I don’t know!” the Doctor replied excitedly. “I’ve set the co-ordinates for a random flight. We could end up anywhere or any-when!”

Clover did an excited happy dance in the centre of the console room.

“Ooh I can’t wait!” she almost squealed with delight.

“Why, my dear Clover, you dance divinely!” the Doctor beamed. He operated a few switches on the console and music began to blare across the control room, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Who are you?

Who, who, who, who?

I really wanna know!

Who are you?

Who, who, who, who???”

The gravelly tones of Roger Daltrey filled the air and the Doctor and Clover began to dance as the TARDIS carried them off to nobody knew where.

 

A short while later the music in the control room had disappeared to be replaced by the sounds of heated debate.

“All I’m saying is how is it even possible for a deaf, dumb and blind kid to be able to play pinball in the first place? It just does not seem realistically possible!” Clover was arguing.

The Doctor was ready with a witty and, he thought, clever response when the grinding of the TARDIS engines and the slowing halt of the rotor announced their arrival at their mysterious destination.

“We shall finish this discussion another time!” the Doctor remarked pointedly with a wry grin.

Clover stuck out her tongue and giggled.

The Doctor crossed to the console and switched on the scanner. All that could be seen was a lot of trees.

“We’ve just gone round in a circle and come right back to where we started from, haven’t we!” Clover exclaimed.

“Of course we haven’t!” the Doctor assured her, but he checked the location data on the monitor in front of him just to be sure. As soon as he saw where they were he smiled and nodded satisfactorily.

“Ah there you see! We have moved in time and in space, though we are still on Earth.”

“Where are we?” Clover asked.

“According to this we are in a forest on the outskirts of a village called Nagoro situated within the Tokushima Prefecture in Japan. The year is 2016 and the month is April.” The Doctor told her.

“I’ve never been to Japan!” Clover enthused.

“Neither have I!” the Doctor replied, “Well at least, not in my life time anyway!”

“Here’s your chance to make some more of those new memories we talked about. Yours… not his!” Clover said to him softly. She took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze which he returned gratefully.

The Doctor operated the door control and together they stepped outside.

 

Emerging from the police box, the Doctor pulled the door closed behind them. For a moment he ignored the tranquil beauty of the Japanese forest and turned to Clover.

“Well go on, aren’t you going to ask me what you should wear for a visit to 21st Century Japan?” he asked her with a smile. He was beginning to enjoy the little ritual of Clover deciding on a new outfit for every landing they made.

“I already have something in mind that I picked up from a Japanese movie we watched back at Smithwood Manor.” Clover told him with a rather mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“Let’s see it then!” the Doctor prompted.

Clover’s red jumpsuit began to shimmer as if hundreds of tiny fireflies were swarming over it and the default outfit began to transform into a black school blazer over a white blouse with a navy blue and bottle green striped tie around the neck. A generic golden stitched school logo that spelled out ‘C. D.’, Clover’s initials, decorated the left breast pocket on the blazer and a smaller version of the same design was emblazoned upon the tie. This was not where the outfit ended though. The ensemble was complimented by a tartan mini-skirt in the same colours as the tie that came to just above Clover’s knees and she also wore sensible black flat shoes over a pair of white socks that came to below the knees.

Clover did a little twirl once the transformation was complete which caused the bottom of the skirt to shimmy and lift a little to expose her smooth lightly tanned thighs albeit ever so briefly. She was well aware of the effect that this was having on the Doctor as he stood there gaping at her, suddenly dry mouthed and speechless.

“What do you think?” she asked him cheekily.

“Good choice!” the Doctor croaked, having to swallow so that his mouth would moisten enough to get the words out.

“I thought you might like it.” She replied, almost literally glowing with pleasure at the Doctor’s reaction.

“Shall we go and find this village?” the Doctor suggested, offering her his arm.

“I think we shall!” Clover beamed and linked her arm into the Doctor’s.

They set off in search of Nagoro.

 

The Doctor and Clover walked through the forest. The sun was just visible through the trees, but it was late in the day because the sun got lower and lower in the sky as time passed. It was beginning to dip below the horizon, painting the skies with an array of deep fiery oranges and reds, by the time that they emerged from the forest. There was not a cloud in the sky so the approaching night would be a clear one lit by the stars and the moon. As the time travelling duo emerged from the trees they spied a bridge ahead of them that would take them into Nagoro. The bridge appeared to cross a small brook flowing in an easterly direction.

The Doctor and Clover began to walk across the bridge. They were not even half way across it when they noticed the first of the strange figures. This one had its back to them and seemed to be sitting in a tree by the bridge, looking out at the road that ran from east to west through the village.

Then there was one further ahead. It was sitting in a deck chair on the other side of that same road and appeared to be watching the approach of the time travellers with intense curiosity. It was difficult to make out any features in the lessening daylight, but there was certainly something rather odd in the way that the figure just stared straight at them unwaveringly without any perceptible movement. Then Clover pointed as she spotted a third figure the size of a small child that was incongruously sat upon a mailbox which was stood next to a lamp post.

“Why are they just sat there looking at… nothing?” Clover wondered.

They were getting nearer to the first figure in the tree.

“Why don’t we try asking them?” the Doctor suggested.

And so they completed their walk over the bridge and approached the tree with its odd occupant. As they got closer they were able to see that the figure was not a real person at all, but rather it was some sort of life sized doll that consisted of stitched together sack cloths that had been stuffed with some undeterminable substance. The sack cloths had been combined to make an uncanny semblance of a humanoid form; head, torso, arms and legs. The arms even ended in sack cloth hands that had been given fingers. Rudimentary features had been woven and stitched onto the face; eyes, nose and a perpetually smiling mouth and a mop of brown woollen hair framed these disturbing inanimate features from atop of the head. The sack cloth mannequin had been dressed in normal clothes; a navy blue shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. It even wore a pair of sensible brown shoes upon its feet.

“Very strange.” The Doctor mused aloud.

“I don’t like looking it in the eyes! It’s like it’s just staring back at me and can see right into me, into my soul.” Clover shuddered and had to turn away.

“I wonder if the other two are like this one?” the Doctor wondered.

“Let’s take a look.” Clover replied, all too happy to put some distance between them and this eerie stuffed sentinel.

They crossed the road. The Doctor approached the figure in the deck chair while Clover went to the ‘child’ on the mailbox. Neither figure turned to look at them as they drew nearer and it was obvious that they were also dolls.

“This one is the same.” The Doctor called to Clover.

“Ditto this one!” she called back.

The Doctor’s doll was ‘female’ and was wearing a light blue dress and a straw hat.

Clover’s was wearing a white hoody, the hood drawn up over its head, beige jeans and white trainers. Its left hand was slightly raised and the fingers had been closed in such a way that it appeared to be giving Clover a thumbs up seal of approval.

“There must be someone here that can provide some sort of explanation.” Clover had not heard or seen the Doctor approach and she jumped at the sudden sound of his voice so close to her.

“You need to make some sort of noise when you walk up to me at times like this. Whistle a jaunty tune or tap dance, or something!” she scalded him gently.

“I’ll try to remember that for next time.” The Doctor teased. “You really are unnerved by these things, aren’t you?”

“Never mind that. Let’s just see if we can find someone real around here to talk to and explain what’s going on!” Clover replied dismissively.

“Alright. Let’s go.” The Doctor agreed. He offered her his hand and she gratefully accepted it.

They walked past the ‘child’ doll and headed further into the village.

As they walked away they did not see the head of the ‘child’ turn silently to watch them leave.

 

Only a very little further down the road did the Doctor and Clover encounter their next doll.

This one was sat at an outdoor table as if it were enjoying a drink in the clear night air. By now the sun had disappeared to be replaced by the half-moon pie that illuminated the eerie tableau from above. The table was situated out on the porch of a quaint looking little shop/café with a corrugated iron roof. There were two other buildings nearby that looked like a garage and a storage shed respectively. The garage had one of those sliding iron shutters, currently shut and quite probably locked too. The entrance to the shed, however, yawned open and its disquieting blackness only served to add to the uncanny atmosphere that pervaded the village.

This particular doll was dressed in a lilac shirt with blue jeans and white wellington boots and a mop of yellow woollen hair was spread over its head like many blonde tentacles.

The shop/café was shut and no light came from within. They would not find any human beings there.

“Do you want to look and see if anyone is in the shed?” the Doctor offered.

“No thank you!” Clover replied with a shiver that had little to do with the cold.

They walked on through the village. The road went straight through the village with very little in the way of turn offs. Along the way they passed more dolls sat in various places and of different shapes and sizes. They passed a few residential homes. No lights on which was unusual because if anyone lived there then surely they would not all go to bed at such an early hour. The sun had scarcely set and the night was still young. On their left they could see a large supermarket over on the other side of the brook and accessible by another bridge. That too was dark.

“I would suggest.” The Doctor said, “That if we’re going to find life here then we should look for the one lone, solitary source of light in this village if there is any.”

“Sounds good to me.” Clover agreed. “Isn’t there some sort of scan that you can do with the sonic sword to detect the level of electricity that would be needed to generate such a light source?”

Unseen by her or the Doctor, a nearby doll raised its lowered head and looked up with sudden interest at the mention of the sonic sword.

 

“Good thinking. Why didn’t I think of that?” the Doctor chided himself lightly. He pulled out the sword from the inner pocket of his grey cashmere jacket and set about scanning the area. Over on the right hand side of the road there was a residential area with a dilapidated selection of apartment buildings.

“I think we might have some luck this way!” the Doctor announced.

They set off towards the apartments. With a little luck one of them would have a light on.

As they departed they were unaware of the doll that had taken such a keen interest in the mention of the sonic sword suddenly rising to its feet and shuffling off after them, keeping to the darkest shadows to remain undetected. As it passed others of its brethren they too jerked to life like marionettes whose strings had suddenly been lifted and they joined their sack cloth ‘brother’ in silently stalking the blissfully unaware time travellers.

“So, do you want to talk about it?” the Doctor asked at last.

“Talk about what?” Clover wondered, though she suspected she already knew.

“Your pediophobia.” The Doctor answered.

“My pedio-what?” Clover asked.

“Pediophobia, fear of dolls. How long have you had it?” the Doctor wondered.

Clover sighed and smoothed down the front of her skirt, a nervous action more than anything else as it did not actually need smoothing.

“Okay, if I can tell anyone it’s you.” She agreed with a little reluctance.

“On Demeter VI they used to sell these dolls. They had creepy white faces made of clay with these little beady glass black eyes that seemed to follow you wherever you went. These eyes were dead. No soul inside them. It was like being watched by a tiny corpse, but for all that they always seemed to me like they could spring to life at a moment’s notice and attack you, strangling you with those tiny clay hands of theirs. I was convinced that they were all secretly alive and evil and plotting the eventual take-over of the entire colony. It sounds weird and irrational I know, but my sister didn’t help!” Clover explained.

“You never told me that you had a sister!” the Doctor interrupted.

“Yeah, I’ve got a sister. Krista is two years younger than me and she was always a little more accustomed to our rich life style than I ever was and she was a real spoiled brat with it too! Needless to say when those dolls came out she wanted one because everyone else wanted one. As soon as she realised that I was scared of them she would prank me every chance she got. I would wake up in the morning to find her doll sitting at the bottom of my bed fixing me in its evil glassy gaze. Or I’d open the curtains in my room and there it would be. It did not help my pediophobia one bit at all, I can tell you!” Clover told him.

“I’m sorry.” The Doctor offered her a smile and squeezed her hand reassuringly. “I can promise you that none of these dolls are going to come to life and try to kill you.”

“Yeah. I think I know that.” Clover smiled back. “But they still scare the shit out of me regardless!”

“That’s strange.” The Doctor said suddenly. They had come to a stop outside one of the apartment buildings. So far they had not spotted any lights.

“What’s strange?” Clover asked.

“Well, I am picking up a minor energy signature in this area that would be sufficient enough to generate a light in one of these apartments, but…”

“I don’t like that ‘but’.” Clover remarked nervously.

“But I am also detecting another completely different signature all together. And it seems to be right behind us.”

Clover looked at the Doctor as if to say, ‘you’re kidding me right?’ and he answered that look with a shake of his head. A shiver ran up Clover’s spine as if one of those clay dolls she’d spoken of was running its icy cold fingers across her back.

She didn’t want to turn around. The Doctor was starting to do just that. Clover wanted to scream at him, ‘what the fuck do you think you’re doing? Don’t you dare turn around!’, but she didn’t and he did.

Now she would have to turn around too. Oh well, here goes, she thought; what was the Doctor seeing?

Clover turned around and… there was nothing. No one or no thing was behind them. Just darkness and shadows. One of those dolls was sat upon a bench, its legs crossed and its arms spread over the back of the seat as if it were nonchalantly pretending that they had not just caught it doing something insidious.

“Was that doll sitting there when we passed just now?” Clover wondered.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.” The Doctor admitted. “That energy signature seems to have gone now though.”

It was then that they heard the sound of motorcycle engines revving in the near distance, back in the direction from which they had walked.

“I wonder who that could be?” the Doctor remarked.

Clover was just relieved to have something to take her mind off these eerie dolls.

“Only one way to find out!” she declared and ran off to investigate.

“Wait for me!” the Doctor called after her as he followed.

 

The dolls had also heard the motorcycles and for the moment they abandoned their stealthy stalking of the two strangers. They melted off into the darkness in order to conduct their own investigation.

If the Doctor and Clover had continued onwards they would have soon seen the light in the top storey of the nearest apartment building three windows in. At the sound of the motorcycles the light had promptly vanished.

 

The Doctor and Clover found the motorcycles and their owners in the parking lot of the supermarket. There were six of them all wearing helmets and at the moment they were just careening around and around in circles about the parking lot as if it were some sort of miniature grand prix track. From their vantage point hiding behind the stone wall at the edge of the lot the Doctor and Clover saw that one of the bikers had a passenger. This passenger appeared to be a woman from the clothes she was wearing; a white blouse and a short black skirt. She was also not wearing a helmet so that her long black hair trailed after her as the bike she was on sped around the lot. The woman was clearly not enjoying the ride as she screamed hysterically whilst clinging to the back of the bike for dear life. It was then that the Doctor noticed that the woman was not holding on with her hands… she had in fact been handcuffed to the back-bar of the bike.

“That woman is not here of her own free will.” The Doctor murmured to Clover quietly.

“Then we’d better do something about it then, hadn’t we!” Clover replied.

The Doctor smiled in agreement.

 

When Katashi Himura swerved his bike into the centre of the parking lot and brought it to a stop the rest of his colleagues followed his lead. As chief enforcer of the local Yakuza he expected nothing less from those under him. He stood up from the seat of his motorcycle and removed his helmet to reveal black spiky hair like one of the heroes from the anime that he loved to watch. The handle of a custom made samurai katana sword protruded over his right shoulder where the weapon hung in a scabbard that he wore at his back. This is what he would use to execute the baishunpu bitch as his boss had ordered.

The girl’s name was Aiko Saito and she had been one of their most popular prostitutes right up until she had gotten herself pregnant by one of her clients. After learning that she was with child Aiko had tried to run away with her pimp’s money. She had not gotten far before they had caught up with her and the boss had wasted no time in ordering her execution.

Everyone in the area knew about the weird little village of Nagoro and its freaky population of dolls presided over by that kooky woman, Sumiko Akiyama. This was the first time that Katashi was using it for an execution, but its isolation and relative abandonment made it perfect for just such a task. If Sumiko tried to interfere they could just kill her too.

Aiko was sobbing hysterically as Katashi instructed one of his subordinates to uncuff her from the back of the bike. Her pretty face was marred by the expression of sheer terror upon it and the torrent of tears that stained her puffy red cheeks. Her left eye was blackened and swollen from where one of the young Yakuzas had back fisted her when she had been caught.

One of the younger thugs had expressed the desire to rape Aiko before they killed her.

“I wouldn’t if I was you.” Katashi had advised him, giggling like an over grown school bully as he said it. “She’s used goods. You don’t know what you might catch from her!”

That had put an end to that though the disappointment on the young Yakuza’s face betrayed the fact that he probably would have been prepared to take the risk.

Once Aiko was free of her cuffs Katashi forced her to kneel, sobbing, in the asphalt of the parking lot. Small sharp stones burrowed into her knees as she was pressed down onto the ground.

Katashi withdrew his katana from its scabbard and swished it through the air like he had seen one too many episodes of Highlander. He took it in both hands and raised it above his head, standing right in front of Aiko so that she would see the blade, see her death, as it came for her.

Her eyes widened in horror and brought fresh fear and hysterical crying.

“Please, please, please! Have mercy! I’m sorry!” she begged.

“Mercy is for pussies!” Katashi spat cruelly and he swung the sword down.

Aiko screamed as the blade descended… and shattered upon the nano-steel of the Doctor’s sonic sword as he moved in and blocked the katana’s lethal arc.

“Huh?” Katashi grunted as he stood there gazing impotently at his ruined weapon.

“RUN!” the Doctor shouted at the hysterical Aiko.

It took her a moment to realise that she was still alive, but once this fact had sunk in she wasted no time in scrambling to her feet and running away from Katashi and his goons.

“Over the wall! Don’t use the bridge!” the Doctor told her as she went.

Katashi had overcome his surprise long enough to turn his attention to the Doctor. Before the Yakuza enforcer could act, however, he was planted onto his ass by a strong kick to the solar plexus from the Doctor that took the wind out of him.

In the background Clover was fighting the other Yakuzas, ducking, weaving, punching and kicking. Her hair and her skirt swished as she spun a kick into one of the goon’s faces and knocked him to the floor. The Yakuza managed to lift himself into a half sitting position and spit blood and a couple of broken teeth onto the ground. He reached into his leather jacket and pulled out an Uzi 9mm semi-automatic machine pistol.

“Fuck!” Clover swore. She dived to one side just as the Yakuza opened up with his weapon and sent a staccato shower of bullets in her direction.

Clover managed to dodge just in time, but one of the Yakuzas behind her, who had been climbing back onto his feet after being foot-swept onto the ground, was not so lucky. Two bullets struck him. One drilled into his shoulder and burst out the other side in a spray of blood and tissue. The second bullet powered into his left cheek and staved the left side of his face into a bloody mess. The unlucky Yakuza fell back onto the ground twitching as his blood pooled into the asphalt.

Before the gun-toting Yakuza could squeeze off any more rounds the Doctor and Clover had fled over the wall after Aiko.

“After them!” Katashi snarled angrily. “Use the bikes! Ride them down!”

The remaining Yakuzas ran to their bikes and climbed back onto them, but they soon realised that they would not be going anywhere on the motorcycles. The tyres had been slashed on each and every one of them.

Katashi threw the broken remnants of his katana upon the ground and spat a stream of ugly expletives in Japanese.

They had no choice, but to pursue them on foot.

“If there is any shooting,” Katashi ordered, “Shoot to wound! I want them to suffer before they die!”   

 

When the Doctor and Clover made it over the wall they were surprised to find Aiko waiting for them. “You’re supposed to be running!” the Doctor said to her.

“I didn’t know where to run to!” Aiko cried desperately.

They took off together running across the shallow brook and onto the road back towards the apartments. The Yakuzas were wasting time sprinting across the bridge so the three fugitives had a healthy head start.

“Who are you people?” Aiko was asking as they ran. “How is it you speak Japanese?”

“Wait, what? We’re speaking Japanese?” Clover looked at the Doctor quizzically.

“I’ll explain later!” the Doctor replied. “To both of you! Now shut it and run!”    

As they drew nearer to the residential area they spotted a strange beckoning figure ahead between two of the apartment buildings. It appeared to be a young woman her face partially concealed by long unkempt black hair, wearing a white kimono tied at the waist by a long black lace belt. She appeared to be bare-footed and had one hand held out beckoning them. Clover was reminded of the scary ghost girl from one of the Japanese horror films that she and the Doctor had watched together.

And then just as quickly as she had appeared she was gone. No, she didn’t disappear into thin air, but rather she stepped backwards and melted back into the shadows so that she could no longer be seen.

The Doctor, Clover and Aiko reached the area where she had been standing, but she was nowhere to be seen. Mindful of their murderous pursuers they ran on.

A short while later the five Yakuzas also reached the residential area.

“Split up and find them!” Katashi ordered. “They can’t have gone far!”

The Yakuzas filed off in different directions, guns at the ready.

 

The Doctor, Clover and Aiko had found themselves at the entrance of one of the apartment buildings.

“We’d probably be better off hiding indoors than out.” The Doctor decided. He tried the door, but it was locked.

They could hear running footsteps heading in their direction.

“Here, let me!” Clover pushed the Doctor aside and took out a laser-cutter which she used to burn out the lock in the blink of an eye. On the Doctor’s look she said, “Thief, remember?” and gave a little wink.

Clover opened the door and they ran inside.

The approaching footsteps were getting nearer. They would almost be at the door and would see that it had been forced open.

The Doctor, Clover and Aiko hesitated in the hallway of the apartment building as they decided where to run to. Should they run up the stairs or try to get into one of the lower ground apartments? They didn’t have much time to decide.

Suddenly a face appeared at the window of the main door that they had just entered through. It was one of the Yakuzas and he leered at them through the window, his breath fogging the glass. He started to pull the door open.

“Up the stairs, quickly!” the Doctor urged.

And then the Yakuza was suddenly yanked backwards away from the door and into the darkness.

The Doctor and the two girls paused as they heard him scream. It was a long, high-pitched shriek of pure terror and then silence.

“Up the stairs, quickly!” Clover parroted the Doctor.

They heaved open the heavy fire doors and ran up the stairs.

 

Katashi and the other Yakuzas had also heard the scream. They all converged in the area where they had heard it. The open door of the apartment building swung steadily back and forth in the breeze.

There was no sign of anyone and the fact was not lost on Katashi that, including him, only four Yakuza had turned up to investigate the scream.

“No more splitting up. We stay together. Safety in numbers.” Was there a tremor of fear in his voice this time?

Together they entered the building in front of them. None of the ground floor apartment doors had been tampered with so the Yakuzas made straight for the stairs and began to ascend.

 

The Doctor, Clover and Aiko kept on running up the stairs, bypassing all of the other floors until they burst through the fire door that opened out onto the roof.

The trio stopped momentarily to catch their breaths, but they could hear the footsteps of the pursuing Yakuzas as they ascended. They did not have long.

“We need to make a stand here! Set up some sort of ambush and take them by surprise as they come through that door!” the Doctor said. He was the first to recover his composure and he went to work immediately. The fire door could be kept open by attaching it to a magnetic locking system set into the wall on the other side of the door. The Doctor pushed the door back so that it locked into place on the magnet and stayed open. Inside the door was pitch darkness. There was no light within and the only real illumination was that which was provided by the half-moon and the twinkling stars above.

“Right, now we take positions either side of the door and jump them as they come through. Wait until they’re all over the threshold.” The Doctor instructed.

Clover and Aiko nodded their understanding and took up positions.

The Doctor stood at the left side of the door with Aiko behind him whilst Clover was on the right. Both he and Clover had taken out and activated the nano-blades of their sonic swords.

Pounding footsteps on the stairs drew ever closer.

“Here they come!” the Doctor whispered.

The footsteps suddenly faltered and gave way to screaming terror, punctuated by bursts of gunfire.

The Doctor, Clover and Aiko listened with mounting horror to the sounds of some sort of terrifying struggle that was being undertaken somewhere in the darkness below them.

And then there was silence.

After a few short moments the Doctor stepped out in front of the open door and peered into the blackness.

The torn and ragged figure of Katashi Himura tumbled into view on the top most steps. He was still alive, but his clothes were shredded in places and his face and hands were lacerated by tiny cuts as if he had been dragged through a forest of prickly pears. Somewhere in the mayhem that he had just endured he had lost his gun. Katashi crawled up the steps slowly, pulling himself up with claw-like fingers. He looked up at the Doctor with pleading and terror in his eyes.

“Help me!” he croaked.

The Doctor stepped forward.

A sack-cloth hand emerged from the inky depths beyond the stairs and grasped Katashi’s right ankle.

Before the Doctor could do anything the Yakuza enforcer was dragged back, screaming, into the darkness.

Then the dolls started to pour out of the blackness en masse, staggering and swaying up the steps on their sack-cloth feet. There seemed to be hundreds of them coming forth from the dark like ants through a crack in the pavement.

The Doctor took several steps back away from the door and just stood there as they advanced, his sword held by his side, just in case. Clover and Aiko joined him and looked to see what he saw.

“Oh shit, oh shit! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” Clover breathed, almost hyperventilating at the sight of what was coming up the stairs.

Aiko just screamed.

The dolls reached the door and fanned out from left to right as they emerged with an eerie silence onto the roof. They formed a circle around the Doctor, Clover and Aiko, but they did not attempt to come closer or touch the two human girls and the Time Lord. Clover was quite okay with that. It took all her will power to restrain herself from lashing out at them with her sword. She was still breathing far too quickly and invoking the name of the Christian deity over and over again.

“Control your breathing, Clover, or you’ll get hysterical. Deep calm breaths, like this…” the Doctor demonstrated by breathing in, then out again very slowly and carefully.

Clover copied his example and felt herself beginning to calm down. She still gripped her sword very tightly though.

“What are they, Doctor?” she asked. “What do they want?”

The dolls were just standing there as still as the inanimate mannequins that they were meant to be.

Then they parted in the middle as one to create a pathway through them leading to the door that they had just finished coming through.

“I think they’re letting us go.” The Doctor remarked.

But then someone else came out through the door and walked bare-footed down the cleared path to stand in front of the Doctor, Clover and Aiko.

It was the same mysterious long haired woman in the white kimono that had appeared and beckoned to them before.

Sumiko Akiyama smiled at them through the curtain of black hair that framed her beautiful pale features.

“Hello!” she said.

 

The Doctor, Clover and Aiko were sat cross-legged upon futons in Sumiko’s apartment being served green tea by dolls with teapots. Sumiko sat across from them, that same bright smile on her face. Since arriving at the apartment she had taken the time to tie her long hair up into a bun on her head so that it no longer covered her features like the popular depiction of a female yokai. She had insisted that everyone remove their shoes before entering her apartment, including the dolls that came in to make and serve the tea.

“Nagoro has been uninhabited, practically abandoned for many, many years. The people that used to live here either left to go and find employment or died. My parents were the last to die here and I came back to bury them. After the funeral I decided that I didn’t really want to leave. I am a published writer and have enough money from my royalties that I do not have to worry about working a full time job and I can write here easily enough. I don’t need an office.

For a while it was wonderful having an entire village to myself. I could go wherever I wanted and do what I wanted whenever I wanted.

After a while though I started to feel the loneliness. That’s when I started making the dolls. One for each resident that used to live here. I have placed them everywhere within the village. At the supermarket, in the school, in the fields. Everywhere I go now I have someone to talk to because they are there and I am no longer lonely. I thought that would be enough, but then the Tsukumogami came. At least, that’s what I call him.” Sumiko was telling them her story the smile never leaving her face and only pausing now and again to take a sip of green tea.

At the mention of Tsukumogami one of the dolls paused as it refilled Clover’s cup with more tea. The young woman was still eyeing the dolls wearily despite the fact that they had not shown any signs of hostility. This sudden stillness only served to unnerve her even more. And then there came the voice in her head.

“I am the last of my kind.” The voice echoed softly through the minds of the Doctor, Clover and Aiko.

Only the Doctor seemed unperturbed by the experience.

“I was travelling alone through the cosmos feeling the utter despair of loneliness at being on my own in the universe. It was only as I was passing through this solar system that I became aware of the feelings of a kindred spirit. I came to Earth to seek out this being that shared my isolation and found Sumiko sitting by the brook outside talking with one of her constructions. I took it upon myself to inhabit the facsimile of humanoid form and bring it to life. Sumiko was frightened at first, but my voice in her head soon calmed her. We have been companions ever since.”

Sumiko nodded as if she had heard all of this too, which she probably had, a serene smile upon her face.

“So you are animating all of these dolls by yourself?” the Doctor remarked with wonder.

“Yes, my powers of telepathy and telekinesis are considerable.” The Tsukumogami replied.    

“Then that second power source I detected outside earlier must have been you.” The Doctor realised.

The head of the doll standing next to Clover nodded, causing her to jump and nearly spill her tea.

“Sorry.” She yelped sheepishly.

“It is I who should apologise.” The Tsukumogami replied. “I did not mean to startle you.”

It continued inside their heads.

“I had been monitoring you ever since your arrival in the village. It was when I heard you mention your sonic devices that I began to follow you. I was afraid that you might be a threat, but when the Yakuzas arrived and you helped Miss Saito to escape I knew that I need not fear you.”

“What is to become of me now?” Aiko asked, “I can never go home. The Yakuza will kill me.”

She had already explained to them all about how she had once been owned by the Yakuza and worked for them as a prostitute and about how she had run away when she had discovered that she was pregnant.

“I think I know somewhere that you can start a new life and where the Yakuza will never find you.” The Doctor assured her with a smile.

 

The Doctor and Clover dropped off Aiko at the _Allen’s Arms_ where they introduced her to Ramona.

Ramona agreed to let Aiko stay with her, just so long as she didn’t mind helping out in the bar once in a while.

The two time travellers returned to the TARDIS and headed off into the vortex for another adventure.

 

“I wonder what happened to the Yakuzas that were taken by the Tsukumogami?” Clover wondered as the Doctor busied himself at the console.

“You know I never thought to ask!” the Doctor replied absently.

“Oh one more thing, Doctor!” Clover added, she was about to leave the console room and head off for a shower.

The Doctor looked up.

“Yes?”

“Let’s never go to Nagoro again!” she replied and then she stuck out her tongue and skipped off for that shower.

 

The man that had once been known as Katashi Himura staggered in his tattered clothes down the empty quiet road that led away from the village of Nagoro. The four other former Yakuzas were with him. All wandered aimlessly along the road with no recollection of who they were, where they had been or what they had been doing. It was a long walk home, but none of them could quite remember where home was.

 

**The End**


End file.
